rMBP 2013 price drop?

I understand that this is COMPLETE SPECULATION, and I expect no absolute truths. I know that none of you work for Apple, etc.

I was just wondering, based on past experiences when Apple launched new products, if anyone can provide an educated guess as to how Apple will deal with the next revision cycle.

Will Apple:

A) Scrap the 15" MBP, and lower the price of the rMBP to take its place.
B) Continue the separate lines at separate price points

I'm asking because while I like my rMBP, I'm finding it difficult to justify the price premium. If Apple historically tends to opt for option A for a few years, I'd probably keep the rMBP. If Apple historically tends to opt for option B, I'd return it/sell my rMBP and wait for next year.

Like does anyone remember how Apple dealt with the 13"MBP and 13"MB? or the 13" MBAir and the 13"MBP?

I think a price drop will inevitably happen, especially with the price of SSD going down so fast. We're in the middle of a transition. They kept the cMBP because they knew the Retina was too expensive for a lot of people. I don't think the rMBP will be exactly the price of the cMBP next year, but I'm sure their will be at least some sort of price drop, or at least a capacity bump at current prices which will make more people buy the baseline model. When they feel the rMBP is affordable enough, they will remove the cMBP. I think that will happen sooner rather than alter.

The 13" rMBP will probably be out by then if you want something cheaper, and I wouldn't be surprised if the MBA would also be cheaper since one of its most expensive component is still SSD and SSD is becoming cheap very quickly. I think that like for the rMBP, the MBA will either be cheaper or offer more storage for the same price, pushing more people to buy base models and making Macs in general more affordable than right now.

A)
Scrap the classic unibody 15 within 11 months
Only 15" retina
No more 17" revived
13" retina mbp later this year or if not, the 13" MBA gets retina next year
No more classic unibody mbp by next year

The 15" mbr price isn't so bad
Get the student discount logging into a campus store or have a friend in college help you buy it

States like new Hampshire, Alaska, oregon or others that don't have sales tax. North Carolina has a sales tax holiday August 3-5

Shows you the prices of all macs released and the price for each specification. The first unibody 15" base (October 2008) was priced at $1999 and they eventually came down to $1699 (June 2009) and then went up again to $1799 (April 2010). However, the 13" unibody since it's 2009 release has stayed at $1199 for the base model. 13" MBA air prices started at $1799 (October 2008) and well now are down to $1199 for the base model.

I expect the 15" rMBP to be $100-$200 cheaper next year when they will likely stop the previous MBP line and just keep the retina and air models.

i kind of liked the 17", although it was still cramped in terms of real estate. There are some things where no laptop display will ever be efficient in terms of scale. IPS displays have become more common in laptops in general over the past couple years. Lenovo has the option for one in one of the T thinkpads if I recall correctly. Asus uses one in an ultrabook model. I could mention HP, but it would be a little biased there. They did their dreamcolor implementation on it, which probably meant extra R+D with a product of limited volume given the software tweaks and things + non standard display option which is always expensive in a laptop. Recall that Apple up until this year charged $150 for the higher res anti glare display. This new display is really quite nice, but I think they'll iron out the implementation further by its second generation. Note that when I say implementation, I'm not talking about the resolution. I'm talking about consistency in color, shadow detail, etc. It was a pretty immense design change.

IPS is still far from common, though granted that before that, it was just the dream color 2 that had ips since a long time. Now the envy and sony s15 share the same display, the x230, the rmbp and the dreamcolor 2 in the elitebook W line

And yes I think that apple will drop the prices of the RMBP 15, probably following the same strategy of when they introduced the unibody models, Im not 100% certain of course

I don't see why people feel the Rmbp is a premium cost machine to the cmbp. If the 15 base cmbp is specced with 8gb ram and a 256ssd from apple, it's $200 more than the base Rmbp (on the Canadian store anyways), weighs more and has a much lower quality display. How is that good value unless you absolutely cannot make do without a built in optical drive or Ethernet/fw?

the classic MBP line will go away. 13" MBP will be completely eliminated and replaced by a retina MBA. So the entire laptop line will be 11" MBA, 13" MBA, 15" MBP.

This would slim the line again and have less fragmentation, which is how Apple seems to like their lines.

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I don't think 13"MBP will be replaced by 13"MBA.

I think 13" MBP is value for money lineup. Cheap in Mac standard with a lot of feature (ports).

I see a lot of 11" MBA and 13"MBP everywhere. In my opinion, the next few years, the lineups will be the same with current lineups. 11-13 MBA | 13-15 MBP | 15 RMBP.

This retina...seems 'special' it might be bothersome for some because of the scaling effect. it won't replace standard screen anytime soon (in future might be..)

If I were a designer for current time and market, I will use ordinary 1:1 screen to avoid the thinking about scaling and others. Still, I will learn about developing UI to support retina (because it is too late if you wait others).

I think 13" MBP is value for money lineup. Cheap in Mac standard with a lot of feature (ports).

I see a lot of 11" MBA and 13"MBP everywhere. In my opinion, the next few years, the lineups will be the same with current lineups. 11-13 MBA | 13-15 MBP | 15 RMBP.

This retina...seems 'special' it might be bothersome for some because of the scaling effect. it won't replace standard screen anytime soon (in future might be..)

If I were a designer for current time and market, I will use ordinary 1:1 screen to avoid the thinking about scaling and others. Still, I will learn about developing UI to support retina (because it is too late if you wait others).

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IMO, I don't see Apple keeping 3 lineups of notebooks. A 13" retina will likely be released this year and no way will apple keep 3 different lines that will require refreshes yearly and an eventual redesigns.

I'm asking because while I like my rMBP, I'm finding it difficult to justify the price premium. If Apple historically tends to opt for option A for a few years, I'd probably keep the rMBP. If Apple historically tends to opt for option B, I'd return it/sell my rMBP and wait for next year.
!

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Not for at least three years.

Apple is spending billions of dollars in television advertising worldwide to promote this model. This price point is funding the ad campaign. Apple is selling them as fast as their Chinese factories can produce them.

I'm pretty sure the MBAs won't be Retina any time soon and be left as a budget option, like the old white MacBook, because:

1) A Retina display would lower battery life. The 11" MBA already has a pretty weak battery so I don't think it would be a smart thing to do.

2) A Retina display costs money to make. I think Apple should focus more on providing a decent Mac laptop for 999$. The white MacBook used to be a decent primary computer for a lot of people. The 11" 64GB MBA doesn't have enough storage and a large enough screen for a lot of people to consider it as their primary computer, even if they're not power users. They will more likely consider the 13" 128GB or 256GB models which are considerably more expensive than the old white MacBook.

3) Apple decided to put a 1440x900 display in the 13" MBA for a reason. If their plan was to replace it quickly, they probably would have put a 1280x800 like in the 13" MBP so that the Retina panels they would have to make (2560x1600) would be cheaper to produce and to run with an iGPU. Instead they chose a higher resolution than the 13" MBP without changing 13" MBP's panel which made it clear that they wanted the current MBA design to be more future proof than the 13 MBP's.

I predict something like that for 2013:

11" MBA: Same design and price but with double the storage (128GB/256GB instead of 64GB/128GB). 512GB storage offered as an option but nothing higher to prevent 13" rMBP cannibalization. 4GB RAM standard with 8GB BTO option.

13" rMBP: Price in between current 13" MBP and 15" cMBP. Bigger battery than current 13" MBP to compensate for the Retina display. No discrete graphics, relies on improved Haswell iGPU. Ports and thickness identical to 15" rMBP. Either dual-core or quad-core CPU with 35W TDP. Could start at either 128GB or 256GB depending on price, with options to go up to 1TB storage. 8GB RAM standard with 16GB BTO option.

15" rMBP: Price in between current 15" cMBP and current 15" rMBP. Still starts at 256GB, with options to go up to 1TB storage. New discrete graphics. 8GB RAM standard with 16GB BTO option.

IMO, I don't see Apple keeping 3 lineups of notebooks. A 13" retina will likely be released this year and no way will apple keep 3 different lines that will require refreshes yearly and an eventual redesigns.

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Yes, if Apple launch 13" retina, they won't keep 3 different lines. That will be to many.

I think with this perspective :
Retina is..you know.. quite troublesome IMO for designers. I haven't got my retina but do you think that the scaling stuffs will require more effort to solve/think?

One of Apple trend was used to keep the same price but lately, the price is getting cheaper. If 13" retina replace 13" MBP, I think they can't keep maintaining the price and in fact, the price will be more expensive than the current model.

Or they might be waiting until other components price are cheaper so that the cost of 13" retina is the same with 13" MBP so they can replace it.

In my mind right know, I always think that the 'retina' resolution inside small screen is different. It requires special treatment (like designing bigger picture for retina, etcs). Therefore, not all people want to upgrade to retina right know (it might in the future).

Because if someone doesn't want to choose retina and what left are macbook air lineups, their specifications cannot satisfy someone who needs spec inside MBP. Chance they use other brand is higher.

i'm pretty sure it will get cheaper, because of the SSD price drop.
since SSD will be cheaper, they can lower the price without getting less money out of each MBPr. and then they will sell even more and get more money

IPS is still far from common, though granted that before that, it was just the dream color 2 that had ips since a long time. Now the envy and sony s15 share the same display, the x230, the rmbp and the dreamcolor 2 in the elitebook W line

And yes I think that apple will drop the prices of the RMBP 15, probably following the same strategy of when they introduced the unibody models, Im not 100% certain of course

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I didn't say common. Asus was the cheapest one so far. I think Dell had one too at some point. HP's 24" dreamcolor displays are supposed to be quite good, but I see way more Eizos. The desktop dreamcolor version is $2850 for the full kit (display + proprietary calibration software). They don't offer an SDK, so you're pretty much using their solution or wasting your money on it, but the thing is designed as a low end broadcast monitor. It still surprises me that Lenovo doesn't offer an ips option for their W series thinkpads.

Regarding Apple, they'll probably eventually make the 15" rmbp the sole 15" option at similar price points. It could be next year, but if they think Haswell improvements will sell the computer, they may stretch it out another year. It's too early to tell how successful the machine will be given that we're still riding the initial hype and watching extended order times.

I think 13" MBP is value for money lineup. Cheap in Mac standard with a lot of feature (ports).

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The 13" really isn't heavy or cumbersome, and a design comparable to the 15" rMBP could potentially sell quite well, especially if they hit the right price range. I don't expect the 13" MBP to go away. We've had these kinds of speculations, but Apple hasn't missed a cycle on it. It's quite likely that the forum is biased toward the latest designs relative to actual sales given that it is an enthusiast site.

13" rMBP: Price in between current 13" MBP and 15" cMBP. Bigger battery than current 13" MBP to compensate for the Retina display. No discrete graphics, relies on improved Haswell iGPU. Ports and thickness identical to 15" rMBP. Either dual-core or quad-core CPU with 35W TDP. Could start at either 128GB or 256GB depending on price, with options to go up to 1TB storage. 8GB RAM standard with 16GB BTO option.

15" rMBP: Price in between current 15" cMBP and current 15" rMBP. Still starts at 256GB, with options to go up to 1TB storage. New discrete graphics. 8GB RAM standard with 16GB BTO option.

It's fully possible that they may expand on this in the future, but this one was more expensive than Apple's top 13" cpu option. While they're both listed as 35W, I'm not sure if one tends to be more power hungry. The dual has a higher max turbo boost. I won't touch a computer with less than 16GB at this point if I intend to do any work on it.

What I heard about other's speculations:
1. Haswell is expected to join the Macbook in 2013
2. MBA will integrate with CMBP to achieve a higher bargening power for RMBP, you can only choose among MBA and RMBP, not like you can choose among the three

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